


Let You Down

by scout (scout_eki)



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Broken Families, Clay | Dream Angst (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Dreamon, Family, Hurt Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Hurt No Comfort, Multi, Poor Dream, Possessed Clay | Dream, Possession, Prisoner Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Sad Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Self-Hatred, a bunch of them - Freeform, dream dies at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:41:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29188704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scout_eki/pseuds/scout
Summary: He smiles because he finally gets it; he finally understands what Nightmare has been telling him all along. They never needed him in their family, they made one all on their own, without him, against him.Or: the 5 times dream thought he found a family and the 1 time he realized he’ll never truly have one
Relationships: Cara | CaptainPuffy & Clay | Dream, Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & Luke | Punz, Clay | Dream & Sam | Awesamdude, Clay | Dream & Technoblade & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit
Comments: 39
Kudos: 640





	Let You Down

**Author's Note:**

> hello dream angst tag it is I again 
> 
> normalize blaming all of dsmp!dream's actions on the dreamon

The first time Dream felt like he had found a true family was when he met Sapnap and George.

He had been on his own for years by the time he found Sapnap, his birth family long gone, their warm hugs and soothing words turned into memories of bloodshed and screaming, the sound of pillagers ravaging his town plaguing the memories. He had been living in a small shack in the forest when he came across a black haired boy who was crouching behind a tree, his dark eyes trained on a nearby cow, a dull axe in hand. 

Dream had kept his footsteps light, trying not to startle the boy while he made his way towards him, his curiosity peaked. Nevertheless, the ravenette heard him, his head whipping around to stare at the blond, his eyes flicking every which way with distrust. His voice came out scratchy, as if he hadn’t drinken anything in a while. “Who are you?”

Dream knew he probably didn’t look much better than the ravenette, his clothes dirty and tattered, bruises and small cuts littering his skin from traversing the dense forest. The headband-wearing boy himself had dirt smudges spread across his tan skin, and the hesitance in eyes couldn’t have been caused by anything insignificant. They both seemed to be in the same boat: dirty, tired, young,  _ alone. _

“My name’s Dream.”

The ravenette still looked at him with unease, but after glancing at the iron axe Dream had strapped across his back- which he totally did not steal-, some of it relented. “Wanna team up against this cow?” Dream glanced at the aforementioned animal, which was grazing through an open space in the trees. “I’ll share some of the meat with you.”

The green eyed boy didn’t have to think too hard about his answer, desperate for any type of human relation after years of nothing. He unstrapped the axe from its hold, his grip on the weapon confident and familiar. “Sure.”

Just like that, the two boys were practically inseparable. They had managed to build a larger shack than Dream’s previous one, their small hands not able to build anything more than a one room building. Sapnap had crafted Dream’s first mask- after he had gotten sick of hearing the blond complain about his expressive face not being intimidating enough- out of the skull of a forgotten skeleton, his fingers deftly carving two beady eyes and a large smile. 

They spent their days either gathering resources or playfully sparring. They became familiar with each other’s fighting styles, and over time they got better and better. They weren’t a perfectly equal match, Dream always slightly ahead of the ravenette, but Sapnap closed the distance between them more and more as the years passed.

When they were fourteen, roughly 2 years after they met each other, they caught wind of a tournament coming to town. It was a pvp event where the top three competitors would get more than the two boys’ weights in gold. Sapnap had been eager to join, and after weeks of pestering Dream- who was only hesitant due to the ravenette getting potentially injured- their names were finally on the sign up sheet.

The event went better than either of them expected, Dream and Sapnap placing in first and second respectively. The two had gone home that night with bright smiles on their faces, Dream’s being hidden by his white mask, and their packs being filled to the brim with gold coins. After that, they entered the competition every year, more and more gold adding to the pile they kept in their chests.

When they were sixteen, they had met George, who coincidentally placed in third at the tournament that year. The three were attached at the hip, Dream and Sapnap’s small shack growing to accommodate George and his possessions. They stuck together through thick and thin, through petty arguments and defending their base from mobs. When Dream had presented the idea of creating an SMP for them and some others, they eagerly followed him. They were a family, no matter what.

_ And then it all fell apart. _

-

Dream met Sam and Punz soon after he opened the SMP.

The two had been roaming nearby lands, searching for any place to make a home, when Dream opened the gates to his SMP. The two gotten along great with both George and Sapnap so Dream let them stay. They fit into the group they had created easily, molding themselves in without any complaint from others.

Dream had allowed Sam to experiment with redstone on the server. He allowed him to build to his heart’s content, supplying him with resources the older blond couldn’t imagine ever getting. Punz and Dream fought side by side in tournaments and playful games, rising up in the ranks in numerous events they were entered into. 

The two soon joined Sapnap and George with filling the brotherly slots Dream’s missed since he was a boy. When the three of them were together, whether it be in public or still in the SMP, they were seen as brothers; their physical resemblance only furthered people’s thoughts. They treated Dream with respect and love, and the masked man didn’t fail to deliver the same feeling back.

_ Until they started treating him the way everybody else did. _

-

When Tommy and Tubbo had joined the server, Dream felt a protectiveness rise up in him that he hadn’t felt since he was younger.

He knew he had younger siblings at one point, knew he had brothers through blood that were probably long gone now, either out making a name for themselves or joining the carnage left by the pillagers the day Dream left. However, the role of being an older brother,  _ a protector,  _ was long gone by the time the two boys entered the scene. 

He had welcomed them with open arms, even after he heard of the trouble the two had caused on previous SMPs. The two had made themselves right at home, running around the place and meeting the original members with an unabashed confidence only children could have. 

He treated the two of them like they were his own brothers. He spoke to Tubbo with kindness and care, and teased Tommy the way the younger blond did back to him. The time Dream spent with the two,  _ before the wars and bloodshed and hatred,  _ were some of Dream’s favorite moments. 

Even if realistically he knew Tommy already had a family, even though he knew Tubbo was welcomed into that same group easily, he couldn’t help but feel as though they were his own brothers. They teased each other like brothers, they playfully fought like siblings, underneath it all they still  _ cared  _ like brothers.

_ In the end, it didn’t matter. _

-

When Dream started to feel the pull of the dreamon that had laid dormant inside of him for years, ever since he was a ten year old boy too curious to notice the obvious being that swirled within a book he found in a woodland mansion, he made sure to surround himself with people stronger than him; namely, Techno and Phil.

The dreamon- deemed Nightmare by a young Dream coming to terms with the fact that he was now  _ possessed- _ seemed threatened when Dream was around people who could physically take him down at any given moment. Years of pvp practice didn’t make it easy for Dream to find people like that, but when he did, he clung to them.

He had met Technoblade when he was twenty. The pinkette had garnered a reputation as the best fighter in all the lands,  _ he was even nicknamed the Blood God,  _ and Dream was desperate to take him down. He got too cocky, he’ll admit, and he ended up being the one to get knocked down a peg, but at least he made a formidable ally out of the battle. 

When Techno was called to the SMP- technically by Tommy, but Dream was eager to allow him- the man asked if he could bring Phil, his pseudo-father- not that the pinkette would admit that-, with him, and Dream allowed him. He didn’t know much about the older blond, only that he was a powerful warrior and managed to earn the name  _ The Angel of Death,  _ but if Techno trusted him, Dream did too.

As time went on, as Nightmare grew stronger and stronger due to the chaos and pain inflicted on the people around Dream, who inwardly screamed everytime his ~~family~~ friends looked at him in disgust, the green eyed man sought out Techno and Phil more often. The little cottage in the middle of the tundra was the only place the grip Nightmare had on him loosened, allowing him to actually breath for once. If Techno or Phil noticed the way he acted differently around them, they didn’t say anything. The two were nice and civil with him despite everything ~~he~~ Nightmare's done around the server.

_ Until they didn’t help him when he truly needed it. _

-

When Nightmare was unrelenting in his control, when he was reduced to a monster, when nobody around him could even bear to look at him, he met Puffy. 

The woman, even though she watched him with a guarded curiosity, allowed him to trail behind her as she went along with her duties. He didn’t say anything, for fear of Nightmare taking control and spewing things he did not mean, but she didn’t seem too bothered. He could hear her calling him “her duckling” when she thought he couldn’t hear, and Dream couldn’t deny the tears that sprung to his eyes everytime she used the nickname.

Puffy filled the maternal role that had been left empty in Dream’s heart since he was six. She treated him like a person, like a child that just wanted some company, despite everything that’s happened on the server. Nightmare had been angry with Dream when he first started to hang around the woman, screaming and clawing at him from the inside, but the masked man hardly wavered.

He wasn’t going to let the dreamon ruin another one of his relationships, no matter how hard it tried. He wasn’t going to let the beast stop him from hanging around with the older woman, even if sometimes his legs felt weighed down and his chest felt tight. Nightmare relented after a while, noticing the toll it was taking on its host; not willing to give up the body so early, it stayed dormant while he followed the woman. 

She became his only solace on his own server, the only person who treated him with respect despite his several atrocities. 

_ Until he wasn’t good enough for her to treat him like a person. _

-

Everything simultaneously crashed and burned once Nightmare took full control.

Dream could only sit back, a prisoner in his own mind, as he watched as the dreamon wreak havoc on his own server, attacking everyone around him without mercy. No matter how much Dream tried to stop it, no matter how much he tried to rid himself of the terrible being, the thing stayed glued inside him. 

Even though Dream’s bond with Tommy and Tubbo was never the strongest, always laced in a distant mistrust from the two younger boys, he never thought Nightmare would go for them first. He had to watch as his own hands and words broke the two of them, killing the connection between himself and them with clever strikes of a sword. He watched as Tommy’s gazes towards him turned to ones of fury, as Tubbo became stoic and professional everytime he caught sight of the masked man. It chipped at his soul.

_ You, Dream, are the reason this server is bad. _

He was forced to watch as he went against Sapnap and George. He had to watch as their faces fell with disappointment as Dream couldn’t respond to their desperate pleas, couldn’t answer as to  _ why  _ he was doing what he’s doing. He ached to explain it all to them, to explain how he can’t control what his body’s doing, how he doesn’t want them to leave him alone to suffer with this  _ thing  _ inside of him, but he couldn't.

_ Just tell me you hate me. _

_ Dream doesn’t care about us. _

Even though Phil and Techno lived out in the tundra, far away from the main events of the SMP, Nightmare’s influence still spread to them. The dreamon aided in Wilbur’s growing insanity, providing the man with anything he needed to create absolute and utter chaos. He tore apart their family from the seams, planting distrust and betrayal into their bonds until it grew on its own.

_ Kill me, Phil. Phil, kill me. _

He watched as his actions furthered delved the server into chaos, friendships broken left and right until everything was shattered. He watched as his actions became even too much for Puffy. Puffy, the last person to treat him as a person when he needed it most, finally giving in to the words around her. Nightmare made sure nobody was spared, not even people who Dream rarely even physically talked to.

_ I’ve lost my duckling… maybe forever. _

He watched as both Punz and Sam stayed at a distance, never getting too involved in the events around them until they had to. When Nightmare had commissioned the prison to be built, Dream kicked and screamed as much as he physically could, the only sign of his struggles being a slight twitch of ~~his~~ Nightmare’s body. He watched as the two of them grew cold towards him, breaking their bonds without ever trying to see what the masked man was going through.

_ You should have paid me more, Dream. _

_ We can put him in the prison. _

As he sits in the obsidian cell, the permanent cold of the room settled deep within his bones, he wonders if he deserved everything that happened to him. Nightmare used to tell him he did, back before he left him alone to his poisonous thoughts in the room, but now he knew for sure. 

He doesn’t deserve the family he once had, he never did. _Why would a monster deserve nice things?_ He deserved to be left alone to deal with the aftermath of the torture ~~Nightmare~~ _he’s_ inflicted on the people in his server. He doesn’t deserve the human contact he got from Sam bringing him stale potatoes; Sam knows this too, since he installed an automated food system not long after Dream was placed in the obsidian chamber.

He deserved all the scornful looks sent his way, all the angry words spewing out of the mouths of the people he once considered his family. 

He doesn’t deserve a family, though, does he? The gods must have known that, they must have sent that pillager raid down on Dream’s village for a reason. Nightmare must have known it too, it was only doing Dream a favor in helping him finally notice it. He doesn’t deserve friendly looks and comfortable touches, doesn’t deserve the way people treated him in the past. 

He deserves the torture he’s been placed in. He deserves the silence coating the air, only broken by the clock,  _ which he eventually broke,  _ and his stifling heartbeat. He deserves the complete solitude, nobody would want to visit him anyway. He deserves to have his anguished cries and pleads never heard by a soul, the obsidian far too thick for his voice. 

As he lays on the cold obsidian floor, his back long messed up from the lack of bed in the cell, he knows for sure that this is what he deserves. He looks up to the ceiling, the only stimulation to his ears being his own irregular heartbeat, and smiles. The smile is a cruel twist of lips, no happiness evident in the expression. 

He smiles because he finally gets it; he finally understands what Nightmare has been telling him all along. They never needed him in their family, they made one all on their own, without him,  _ against him.  _ He smiles because he’s finally gotten what he deserves, after all that has happened, and so did everybody else;  _ they all got a family.  _

And as he takes his final breath, the smile never leaves his face.

-

And as the message of his final death sounds throughout multiple different communicators, nine people feel a similar pain in their heart, horrified screams echoing throughout the entire server. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope everyone enjoyed that :]


End file.
